On Friday afternoon in Perth, a family’s car was stolen from their driveway. I learned about it on Twitter. “Search is on for stolen blue Subaru with child inside.”
The parents had left the engine running while unloading the trunk. They had just returned from a vacation. The thief smashed the car through the front gate and sped off. Their three-year-old son was asleep in the backseat.
That day, I attended a middle school orientation with my daughter where, after locating her name on a whiteboard, she ran off to join her friends. Prospective students were given a tour and popsicles. Parents were corralled into a hot gym and told that the uniform shop is open on Mondays and Thursdays. I took a swig from my water bottle and thought about the boy in the backseat.
When my children were three and five, I left them in a car outside of a butcher shop in San Francisco. I was going to run in quickly to purchase some beef for a stew, and would see the car from inside the store. One of my daughter’s favorite songs was on the radio, “Say What You Need To Say” by John Mayer, and so I left the key in the ignition.
I returned to the car a few minutes later with a tenderloin wrapped in brown paper, and noticed a police car had parked behind me. I hopped in the front seat. John Mayer was done and some young female pop star was on. Within seconds, an officer knocked on my window. “Did you just leave your children in the car? With the key in there?” She must have heard the music.
“Yes. Just for a minute. Their favorite song was on.” I stopped talking.
The officer told me she was a mother and that there are crazy people out there. She suggested one of my children could have climbed up front and started the engine. I almost said my kids weren’t that smart but decided nothing about that was funny. She made me promise I wouldn’t do it again.
The blue Subaru was found parked in an alley two hours later, and, according to the parents, the child seemed unfazed and unharmed. The mother reported that he went straight back to pestering his sister. The thief has not been found. I wonder how long it took him to discover the boy, the moment he realized the thing he had set out to do had become something else.